Parts of my SPS tissue is dieing. Flatworms maybe? (with pics)

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Cheech

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Wondering if anyone can help me out with this. The tank is otherwise doing great. All levels are in check, no issues, corals are growing better than they ever have. However, I noticed that on this piece, I have some tissue dieing off in the middle. Besides the die off, it's doing very well. Growing and spreading well, nice polyp growth.

MaWHs.jpg

I highly doubt I have redbugs, as I don't see any red anywhere. Then a friend mentioned that I might have flatworms. I don't think so, as nothing's gone in my tank in months and the last time I dealt with flatworms, they were red. After treatment, they were gone. This was at least 4 years ago.


After looking closely at the tank, I noticed these. I thought that it was simply some algae that started forming, but can I be wrong? Could these be small flatworms, which might be causing the issues I'm having with my sps corals?
rMSzn.jpg

I'm still a little skeptical, but I would appreciate your advice. If not flatworms, any idea why this would be happening to my otherwise healthy acro?

MaWHs.jpg rMSzn.jpg
 
C

Cheech

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BoCoMo said:
Have you posted to RC and others as well?

What is your alk & cal?

Is this s fairly new frag?
Click to expand...
I did... Figured I'd post here as well (you know how fast paced threads are on RC). Alk 9, cal 460. It's actually an old piece. When I got it it was about 1-1/2" long, one branch. Small frag. Took a few months but it finally started growing, and it got healthier, except for this issue.
 
BoCoMo

BoCoMo

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Dang. All looks good too and the second pic doesn't look like flatworms to me (at least from what I have seen) I was going to guess alk low (nope) or cal low (nope) or maybe light shock (nope) and phosphates usually cause the bleaching to start from the base. I'm guessing your mag is probably up there too. Hope someone that can actually help knows better. Any other sps affected?
 
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XanAvaloni

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does this greenish condition wrap all the way around the affected stem (trunk)? Or is it just on the one side that you photographed? If all on one side is there anything in that direction that has tentacles of the very thin but evil tipped nature? all I can think of....something like flatworms or other small animal would seem like it would affect all over the coral, or over others in the tank, rather than picking a very isolated spot (s) on just one.

lack of experience precludes more constructive ideas. Hope you either find the cause or it clears up on its own. :)
 
greech

greech

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A few of those globs do look like AEFWs to me (I hope that I am wrong). Take some airline tubing and see if you can siphon one or two out to get a closer look. Assuming water chemistry is good (what is you Mg?), other factors could be lighting and flow. Any changes there recently? Is there any consistent, direct flow hitting the coral from that angle?

Honestly, the PE doesn't look all that good but maybe that is because the lights are out?

Do you have any emerald crabs by chance? I'm sure you know this but red bugs are very tiny and difficult to see until they grow into large numbers. The thing that makes me think this is something other than a pest is that your other acros are doing ok.

This could simply be STN resulting from a fluctuation in temperature or water chemistry that you didn't notice. Typically, that starts from the base up though.
 
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Cheech

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^^ Thanks.. .

I hardly have any other acros in the tank.. A couple of frags that I purchased not too long ago that are doing well but not much more than that. My LPS and softies are doing great though.

My mag is a little off.. I tested yesterday and they were off the charts high. Which is strange cause I haven't dosed Mg in months. I'll test again tonight to see if I get a better reading.

I thought about STN, but strange thing is that the base of the piece is growing quite well, and even though it isn't shown on the picture, the polyps (especially at the base ) are bright green with a nice PE.

I'll keep monitoring to see if there are any changes.
 
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Cheech

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BoCoMo said:
Have you tried to dip it? If it is STN I would frag it to save what I could.

Do you think it could have been stung?
Click to expand...
I highly doubt it was stung because it is high up in the tank, away from everything else. I will try to dip it, but it's attached to a large rock that I'll have to remove (large rock has a couple of other corals attached to it so it'll be a bit of a hassle. )

thanks
 
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